What does the US Army need in a next generation machine gun?

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Subject: What does the US Army need in a next generation machine gun?
Herald12345 2/20/2008 5:04:22 PM

Or for that matter, what do the experts hewre consider would be achievable improvements in the general purpose machine gun? Since I am not an expert on this subject I'm here to learn. I will ask questions though. Its part of the educating Herald series. Herald

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Slim Pickinz next gen= new type of weaponry 2/27/2008 6:46:34 PM

I believe Herald is right when he spoke about the technology plateau in current small arms technology. Future weapons developments will be minor at best until major breakthroughs in energy weapons...ie lasers that have been scaled down enough to be carried by a soldier and powerful enough to match the lethality of gas-fired weapons

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WarNerd 2/28/2008 3:29:53 AM

1. 115 grains = 7.45188 g
2. 80% falloff in velocity at the given bullet aerodynamic coeff. should be 1500 METERS, not FEET.
3. Your results should be about 2400 joules @ 800 m/s or 1770 footpounds @1500 meters.
4. If you use an 8.5 gram bullet as you specify
-4250 joules @ 1000 m/s or 3129 footpounds strike after 100 meters with a barrel pressure calculated in the 70,000+ N/cm^2 range or well in excess of 100,000+ PSI.
-at 80% falloff in velocity that is 2720 joules or 2002 footpounds strike @ 1500 meters.

What kind of barrel or combustion chamber material are you going to use that can take that kind of pressure at 10 cycles per second?

Herald

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What are you assuming for a barrel length to get 70,000+ N/cm²?

The loading data for the 7mm STW shows over 1000 m/s for a 150 grain (9.7 grams) bullet, and I have to assume that it is a practical load.

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WarNerd 2/28/2008 3:34:33 AM

A question for people with current machine gun application experience:

Rate the order of importance for a machine gun: accuracy, sustained rate of fire, and punch.

1.

2.

3.

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ker 2/28/2008 5:13:12 PM

http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/390-2133.aspx ; Military Siencefiction / Laser Rifiles

( gets off topic but you can sort it out.)

The devils paintbrush is here to stay but the funtion it serves in the weapons mix will change over time. I can think of some trends that may develop.

-Many bulets -precision bulets, radar laid anti-personel guns carried by infatry and fired of tripodes (or stedy cam rigs/like in the Aliens movie.)

-Only bulets -Bulets, light, sound and microwaves in concert with each other. Example, progect sound that causes target to "hear" bulets cracking around there ears with out expending the bulets.

-Infantry as pack mule and lead flinger -Infantry as detective and hostage negoeator. Put the guns in little birds.

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Herald12345 2/28/2008 10:43:42 PM

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What are you assuming for a barrel length to get 70,000+ N/cm²?

NLT 75 calibers.

The loading data for the 7mm STW shows over 1000 m/s for a 150 grain (9.7 grams) bullet, and I have to assume that it is a practical load.

Is that at 10 cycles per second?

Herald

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earlm The plateau for small arms has been reached 3/1/2008 8:39:04 PM

It's not economical to design and build a new small arm or MG, it is better to spend the money elsewhere. If a new MG is desired there needs to be a philosophical shift. They had it right in WW1. There are two types of MG, light and heavy. The Germans were wrong, the GPMG is not a good idea. The LMG needs to be light enough for one man to use and the heavy MG needs to be heavy enough to be stable and absorb heat. The heat absorption will be done by metal and air. The tech plateau for cooling was reached with finning and quick change barrels. Any Buck Rogers cooling system is for message boards and Tom Clancy novels only. 25mm auto grenade launchers are too expensive per round. The good old fashioned lead slug with copper jacket kills the enemy for the best price.

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RockyMTNClimber 7mm STW 3/2/2008 1:47:39 PM

The loading data for the 7mm STW shows over 1000 m/s for a 150 grain (9.7 grams) bullet, and I have to assume that it is a practical load.

The purpose I posted the data on the 7-STW was to demonstrate you can not get over 1,000 mps velocities out of a 7mm in a small arms automatic weapon. In fact the 7-STW is a fairly narrow niche caliber designed as a flat shooting, highly accurate, hunting arm. It uterly lacks suitability in combat because it can only be fired at turn bolt cycle speeds due to the fact it generates a mad amount of recoil and heat with each shot (again, nigh on 100 grs of propellant being burned with each boom). I don't think it would make much of a sniper rifle because of the recoil. It is an interesting gun for hunting Big Horn Sheep, Elk, Elan, Wildebeast, or other plains game at 400+ yards/meters but not the thing against Johnny Jihad in the Sunni Triangle or the Afghan/Paki border region.

A 7mm squad weapon would probably mirror something like the Rem. 7mm-08 sporting cartridge (which is based upon the classic 7.62 nato case) or even the old reliable 7mmx57. It would have velocities around 900 mps and offer very little improvement over the 7.62 NATO itself.

I agree with the idea we have plateaued with our technologies and it will be a while before we see the next generation of small arms. The flexible squad gun concept in Herald's link is interesting with its telescoping ammunition.

Check Six

Rocky

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Jeff_F_F 3/2/2008 2:14:46 PM

Sure, there's a tech plateu on the ability to handle heat using steel. For ceramic materials we have just begun to cilimb the mountain.

I saw a slideshow on one of the NDIA smallarms conference lists talking about an extremely light barrel for a machinegun. The barrel had been created using a ceramic core and sheathed with I think titanium and could absorb enough heat that changing the barrel was not necessary at all.

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Yimmy 3/2/2008 10:38:44 PM

Good luck with that!!

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WarNerd 3/3/2008 3:26:06 AM

2. 80% falloff in velocity at the given bullet aerodynamic coeff. should be 1500 METERS, not FEET.

Herald

I have been checking some ballistics tables, and I am afraid that it is feet, not meters. And the falloff in velocity looks to less than 80% of the base velocity, except for projectiles that are very heavy relative to their diameter.

Sorry.

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